Industry committee  I'll be very brief. In terms of your question about basic versus applied research, the CFREF was directed more toward the end of funding basic research, but it was very much focused on areas where the institution had significant, demonstrated capacity, areas that could be ultimately demonstrated to be of significant economic benefit to Canada and had a strong plan for implementation.

Industry committee  It's just a product of the competition cycle for the CECRs themselves. They are for a limited number of years. As new competitions are launched, new investments are made. We are expecting to launch a new competition under the CECRs shortly, but it's really an issue of cash flow and competition timing.

Industry committee  To get the actual performance metrics of the NRC and what's currently available, I'd probably suggest that our colleagues at the National Research Council could provide further information on that.

Industry committee  Do you mean beyond grants, beyond IRAP grants? Which grants would you be referring to?

Industry committee  We had to distinguish between different kinds of grants and contribution programming. The IRAP grants are a certain kind, dealing directly with individual SMEs. There are economies of scale with that.

Industry committee  The thing to recall is that the two organizations are dealing with very different kind of programming in grants and contribution programming. For an organization like NSERC, much of their funding is going to individual doctoral fellowships, graduate fellowships, etc. NSERC and SSHRC are actually able to realize significant savings from the fact that they get a lot of the administration and the conduct of their contributions for free, because of the willingness of individual university faculties across the country to devote their time, gratis, toward the actual overall peer review process for academic research.

Industry committee  Yes. The NRC is still in the midst of an overall transformation to become a much more outward-facing, business-oriented, research technology organization than in the past. They continue to work very effectively with industry on a wide range of projects. I would note that some of their ability to perform and do some of that research and activity was affected by external events, for example, a cyber-intrusion and other kinds of activities, but yes, the NRC continues to partner very effectively with industry.

Industry committee  It's two years of funding, $6 million for this fiscal year and $6 million for next fiscal year.

Industry committee  I'm not in a position to say at this point which institutions are receiving funds. We are still in the project assessment stage, and we're still working with provinces and territories who are identifying their priorities as well under the program. We are hoping to be able to reach agreement with provinces and territories on projects, and then subsequent project announcements over the June-July time frame.

Industry committee  That's correct. What will happen is that we'll have a contribution agreement with each province and territory, and the list of agreed-upon projects will be an annex or a schedule to that agreement. Obviously, institutions will be notified immediately upon that. Part of the issue of this program is that we are trying to move it forward quickly, because part of its benefit is stimulative.

Industry committee  As indicated earlier, we are conducting an assessment of all the individual projects, the extent to which they meet the terms and conditions of the program, and fulfill the merit criteria of the program, and the extent to which provinces and territories themselves are willing to identify individual projects as priorities.

Industry committee  Within the total global budget of the program, we are committed to directing a minimum of 30% of that program funding to colleges.

Industry committee  The bulk of the $50 million increase is for IRAP. Essentially, as I understand your question, you are asking about how this program is managed when that amount has gone up significantly but not the associated operating costs. The answer is that this program's budget was significantly increased once before and that at that time their operational capacity was meaningfully strengthened.

Industry committee  To give you a sense of that, the operating costs for both SSHRC and NSERC are remarkably low. They tend to be in the 4% or under range. They operate very efficiently up to and including SSHRC's and NSERC's share of all their back office audit functions in their finance and corporate services, etc.

Industry committee  This is new funding of $12 million, or $6 million annually, so we're seeking the first $6 million of that two-year funding in these supplementary estimates (A).